I mentioned in that post that business failures will occur. While this is a tragedy it is not all bad. Sometimes life is just like that. The circle of life involves death too. And while death is a tragedy it is neither good nor bad. It is what it is. To me, Steve Jobs expressed this extremely well in his 2005 Stanford commencement address, two years after he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which proved fatal.

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.”

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What is certain from this crisis is that the global and national economies will be faced with serious downturns. The debate is how deep and for how long will the decline be.

Tragically, this will mean widespread business failures and joblessness. The human toll will be very painful to bear. What will this do for our fragile societies, I do not know. Nobody knows except knowing that it will be painful. Many of us have never seen an economic crisis of this scale and impact so it will be difficult to imagine with this will be like. Hope will be a much-needed commodity during this time. Hope that the day after will be better and worth fighting for.

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2018 is a World Cup year. This year, 32 teams from all over the world will be competing to be the World Champions, a feat achievable once in every four years.

In our real world – we are facing similar competition on a daily basis. We just don’t treat it like the World Cup, but we should. Every day, the global economy sees competition. The strongest, or the fastest, or the most innovative, or the most adaptable are the ones that win. This competition is not just about economies, but also ideologies, businesses, jobs, talent etc. With a fast-changing world, the competition gets even more frenetic. Adaptability and ability to move fast become increasingly the desired trait. What is relevant for us ordinary people is how we can sustain our living in this fast-changing environment? Continue reading “In order to be globally competitive, we need to start opening ourselves more to the world.”

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Many seem to agree that organisation culture refers to the organisations’ values, beliefs, habits and how it interacts with different peoples or stakeholders.

Those are certainly some of the dimensions of organisation culture. But are there any others? What about how the culture is incentivised, i.e. its motivations? What about its speed of action, its urgency? Any others?

Would it be fair to explore organisation culture in the following dimensions (and are they the right dimensions)?

values

beliefs

habits, customs and norms

interactions with others

customers

employees

owners

competitors

partners

government

regulators

technology

motivations and incentives

speed of action

dealing with problems

fears

interests

I would like to discuss and explore these further. Only once we understand what is organisation culture, only then can we determine how we understand what creates this culture, so we can work with it, or even “re-boot” it.

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Amongst many things, Google is also well known for its creatively designed office and work spaces. The logic behind the colourful and playful design is to create environments that can nurture creativity and innovation within the people that work in these places. Google is acknowledged as one of the most innovative companies in the past decade or so with a variety of products and services that are significantly impacting and changing our lives.

This is quite a common trait of many tech companies too. And similarly these companies also adopt conditions that are designed to encourage creativity and innovation.

Of course, such conditions are not only confined to office space design. Values, management practices, and leadership play equally big roles.

I believe that environment shapes culture, and in the case of Google and the likes, how much do you think the office and work space design (colourful and playful) contribute towards the respective organisation’s innovative culture?